Make indie games with the minimum of technical know-how

In this week's Technology section of the paper, I celebrate the flourishing public-access game development engine scene, user-friendly templates, languages and tech that allows anyone to put their game design ideas into practice with a few clicks. I discovered the trend last week when in Chicago, helping judge the MacArthur/HASTAC Digital Media and Learning awards. The primarily US-based educators, VCs and digital entrepreneurs around the table were familiar with this trend, which was, frankly, rather new to me.

So, if you've got a brilliant idea and don't have the capital to build it yourself - or the inclination to pimp it to your local Big Name Publisher, create a proof of concept with these recommended game engine kits and let us know when you've got something we can play!

DevFacto was one of the MacArthur finalists, a group that works to "increase Global awareness which support the Millennium Development Goals through information and statistics which are collected in local databases." A very simple puzzle-based game engine, this template is useful for serious pursuits, but the format is totally up to you.

GameSalad is a drag-and-drop game engine that encourages rapid prototyping and on-the-fly editing. The games can then be distributed through their channel or embedded on your blog/website or a host of social networks.

Gamestar Mechanic has an excellent pedigree of games-for-learning types, including James Paul Gee from University of Wisconsin and Eric Zimmerman, co-author of Rules of Play. The project was supported by the Digital Media and Learning awards last year, and the result is a toolbox that lets you build NES-style design gems. They have an impressive library of builds that you can play and rate on their website.

Scratch is a programming language aimed at kids developed by the MIT Media Lab with the support of the National Science Foundation. It's not a games development kit alone, kids (and grown-ups) can create their own interactive stories and animations using the intuitive language too.

Finally, Alice at Wonderland coincidentally pointed me to ChallengeYou, a more sophisticated game engine that allows homebrew developers to create online multiplayer games of aparently any persuasion. The graphics aren't as cute and the process isn't nearly as simple, but this is clearly a step up from the single-player mechanic.

Which other easy-to-use, web-based game development engines have you tried that you rate?